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Untold / Black Light Spiral

Release Date: October, 2014

暗闇へのメルトダウン

あのJames Blakeを見出し、デビューさせたHemlock Recordingsを主宰するUntoldのデビューアルバム。当初はヴァイナルで去年の2月に発売され、日本では同年10月にCDで（USBにて限定リリースされた「Echo in the Valley」をCDでボーナス・ディスクとして添付）発売となった。どうしても、Hemlockのイメージやそれまでの彼の作品からは、ベース・ミュージックやダブステというあたりを想像してしまうのだが、このアルバムはある意味、予想を裏切る質感を持った作品として、大きな衝撃と共に評価された。

このアルバムには、ダブステ、テクノ、ダーク・アンビエント、インダストリアル、ベース・ミュージックなどと言った、いくつものベクトルの音楽の断片が、確かに存在するはずだが、それらはまるでひとつの深い暗闇の底に埋葬され、もはや原型をとどめない状態で溶け合っているようにも思える。方や、ボーナス・ディスクの「Echo in the Valley」は、本アルバムがブラックホールだとするならば、その裏返しのホワイトホールのような感じのMIXで、冷たく白い霧の中で不思議な夢が展開されるようなアンビエント作だ。こう見ると、これら２作品は、まるでUntoldの持つ音楽性の全てがそれぞれ、暗闇と白い霧というフェーズの中にメルトダウンしたようなものなのではないかと思えてくる。

Melting Down to the Darkness

This is a debut album of Untold, known as a co-owner of Hemlock Recordings, the label which has first introduced James Blake to the scene. This album has been first released in Vinyls in February last year, and a CD version (a CD version of the limited mix, “Echo in the Valley” which originally has been released in USB format, is being attached to the Japanese CD version of the album) has been released in the following October. Everyone, including myself have expected that his album may sound like Hemlock’s Bass Music or Dubstep, but it has been appraised with a surprise for its unexpected ambience.

Darkness dominates deeply throughout the album. It is dark as Burial’s darkness, heavy as roars emerging from the underground, and thick as curses lingering everywhere in the album. In the opener track, “5 Wheels”, I can hear pulsing beats vibrating with my heartbeat in the midnight, along with leaden sounds of bass, and sirens of ambulances echoing all over; it makes me as if having an out-of-body experience which is like having my consciousness floating somewhere above in the air separated from my physical body, and observing myself being hit by a car accident. “Doubles” is a Techno oriented track which is like having automatic typewriters operating in the under-floor where you can hear sounds of Berlin’s basement dancefloor banging on its ceiling. In “Strange Dreams”, a Hard-Rocker who had fallen to hell is playing his music in a pool of melting hot ore. The closer track, “Ion” spits out colliding electron in a deformed atmosphere which is put under the influence of electromagnetic waves.

I should think that aspects of music of different vectors: Dubstep, Techno, Dark Ambient, Industrial, and Bass Music do remain in this album, but are all being buried under the deep darkness, to the extent that they all cease to possess their right form and melting into each other. On the other hand, “Echo in the Valley” (a bonus CD for Japanese version) is an Ambient mix work in which a strange dream unfolds in a white, cold, and foggy atmosphere. This mix is so to speak, like a ‘white hole’ against a ‘black hole’ which would be the album “Black Light Spiral”. By listening to these two separate works, I have come to think that all of Untold’s musical insights are being melted down to two different phases respectively; which would be to the darkness and to the foggy whiteness.